(This post originally appeared on Persephone Magazine.) Though I admit to not being all that well-versed in “My Drunk Kitchen” the video series, I still wanted to see how Hannah Hart’s humor translated into book form. I might have aged out of some of this life advice, but her enthusiasm and love of puns still won me over. “[T]his book is about self-improvement and maybe it can improve itself as it goes along,” Hannah Hart writes in the introduction. “Has a cookbook ever been self-aware? […]
An excellent continuation of the new Doctor Who comics series
(This post originally appeared on Glorified Love Letters.) Talking about individual comics issues is somewhat difficult, for one does not want to spoil the story. However, let me continue to encourage you to look into the two new Doctor Who comics runs for both the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors with this brief look. (For a basic background, do check out my thoughts on the first issues for both Doctors here.) The Tenth Doctor and Gabriela are still fighting a strange creature in New York that has […]
An insightful take on the American Dream
(This post originally appeared on Persephone Magazine.) Cristina Henríquez’s newly published The Book of Unknown Americans, is not about immigrants’ relationship to white people. Ideally, this would not be unusual in a novel, but in a literary landscape that is still struggling with diversity, it’s refreshing to read her insightful take on the American Dream. And what is the “American Dream,” anyway? Different economic classes might answer in specific ways, but at the root of every response is the wish, “Can life be a little […]
Loving this memoir means loving the most difficult parts of one’s self
(This post originally appeared on Persephone Magazine.) When one reads a book published by Future Tense, one should expect to feel willingly uncomfortable with the author’s honesty. No matter the specific subject matter, there will be at least one moment, a feeling, a crash into clarity that makes one realize: I’ve been here too. Reading Wendy C. Ortiz’s excellent memoir, Excavation, is an experience no different. Starting with her eighth grade English class, Ortiz recounts the five-year-long relationship she had with her teacher, a man […]